


Intractable

by cyphernaut



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Slavery, Corporal Punishment, Discipline, Hurt/Comfort, Punishment, Spanking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-10
Updated: 2015-01-01
Packaged: 2018-02-28 21:33:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2747870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cyphernaut/pseuds/cyphernaut
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock Holmes burns through last chances almost as fast as his brother can create new ones for him.  When he barely escapes prison after yet another drug conviction, he's assigned to work at the Met as part of his rehabilitation.  That's the moment when he becomes Greg's problem.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This work exists in an alternate universe in which non-violent offenders are released from prison to work in various jobs for the government (or contracted out to private companies). Government loans can be paid off in the same way.
> 
> Thanks to Embalmer56 for her incredible patience, eagle eye, and kind beta.

Greg Lestrade heard footsteps rushing toward him even before he had the door open, so he was prepared to catch his five year old son as the boy launched himself into his father's arms.

“Hello, there, Jack.” Greg greeted him with a kiss. “How did your day go?”

“Good. Mummy shut Sherlock in the broom cupboard.”

Greg blinked back his surprise at the report. “Did she?”

“Not exactly,” Annie answered, arriving in the foyer just in time to defend herself. “He refused to leave. He said it's a reprieve from the ambient stupidity in the flat.”

“Sounds like he likes it in there,” Greg told his son before turning back to his wife. “How's Emmy?”

Emily had been the reason Greg had left Sherlock at home. He'd thought it would be helpful to have another adult around with their daughter home sick, but he hadn't accounted for the fact that Sherlock usually didn't manage to match even the maturity level of the eight year old girl.

“She's sleeping. She's just worn out, I think. Her flu's mostly gone.”

“Good riddance,” Greg said, and Jack echoed him, giggling at the phrase. Greg put him down and sent him off to play on his own while the adults talked. As expected, Annie's face darkened as soon as their son was out of the room.

“He won't do anything, Greg. He barely picks up after himself. It's like having another child around, and you should hear some of the things he said to me today.”

“So you shut him in the broom cupboard?”

Annie pinched the bridge of her nose. “He was just being so horrible, and I put him in there and shut the door. I just needed a few seconds, with Emmy sick...” She trailed off.

“I'm sorry. I thought he'd help.” 

“Why would you think that?”

She had a point. There was nothing in Sherlock's behaviour at the Met that even hinted that he might be willing to put in his fair share of work that didn't otherwise interest him. The programme had been ready to toss him back in prison when Greg had stepped in, motivated by tacit pressure from the man's older brother, appreciation of his work on cases, and not a small bit of compassion for someone who'd come into work with a black eye or busted lip more often than not.

“I'm sorry, Annie. I'll talk to him.”

A loud crash sounded from the kitchen, followed by a less than reassuring, “I'm okay!” from Jack, and Annie left to investigate while Greg turned back to the broom cupboard.

He found Sherlock crammed between the hoover and the wall, fingers steepled beneath his chin as he rested his elbows on his knees. He was still in his pyjamas.

“Get up, Sherlock.”

“Actually, I quite prefer it in here. No inane chattering, no forced labour.”

Apparently picking up after himself and taking a turn to do the washing up was 'forced labour' in Sherlock's opinion. “We have a case.”

Sherlock's eyes lit up. “Murder?”

“Try not to seem too excited about a young woman having her throat slit. Get dressed. I'll give you the details in the car.”

* * *

They rode in the silence that Sherlock usually preferred, the silence that he often enforced by responding to any of Greg's attempts at conversation with deductions and derision. Greg steeled himself for the worst before speaking.

“Sherlock, you have to do better at home.”

“Home?” Sherlock asked in mock confusion. “I don't believe I've been home in the past several months. Ah, you mean _your_ home, where I'm currently imprisoned.”

“Oh, for God's sake!” Greg snapped. He'd opened his home to Sherlock when the only alternative had been an actual prison, had allowed him to continue the work that he claimed kept him sane, and the man persisted in acting as though he were being held in a forced labour camp.

“And what else should I call it? I was held in a confined space today with no food, water, or light source.”

“She left you in there, with the door unlocked, for thirty seconds. You refused to leave for an hour and a half.” Sherlock huffed at him, but otherwise didn't respond. “You're acting like a spoilt child. Next time I'll tell her just to sit you in the naughty chair.”

Sherlock was not amused, probably knowing that Greg was, in fact, within his rights to confine Sherlock to a chair if he deemed it necessary. Sherlock also knew, however, that Greg was unlikely to do anything of the sort. Greg's mobile buzzed, and Sherlock grabbed it to look at the photos coming in, somehow bypassing the pass code on the device. Greg grit his teeth and reminded himself to pick his battles.

* * *

When Sherlock began to run roughshod over the crime scene, Greg knew he should do something about it, but Anderson seemed to have it in hand.

“It's not enough for you to know who did it. We have to prove it in court, which means the evidence cannot be contaminated,” he heard Anderson reprimand. Sherlock was gearing up to spit out a string of insulting deductions, and Greg stepped out of earshot before he would have to intervene. It was a craven move, but he was mentally exhausted from their earlier argument, and Anderson could handle himself.

He joined Donovan at the other end of the lot, where a group of techs were sorting through a rubbish bin. “Shoes?”

“Not yet,” Donovan replied, “But we got a set of footprints, so we have a better idea what we're looking for.”

“Something tacky, I'll bet, with that make up and dye job,” someone quipped, just as Greg's mobile buzzed.

_Get here now._

Anderson never texted him, especially not when he was just several metres away at the same crime scene. Greg scanned the lot and found him standing next to one of the cars, with Sherlock and DCI Callahan partially obscured behind it. He didn't have time to wonder what Callahan was doing at a run of the mill murder as he trotted over.

Halfway there, he realized why Anderson had been so adamant. Sherlock was braced against the bonnet of the car, his coat clenched in his hands, while Callahan whipped his back with some sort of strap. The beating ended and Callahan wrenched Sherlock up by his elbow. Anderson was shaking his head at something, which didn't seem to please Callahan. 

“He will apologise to you, whether you feel you need it or not,” Callahan snapped, just as Greg came into earshot.

Whatever spell was keeping Callahan angry broke at Greg's presence. Callahan glanced at the three of them, then back to the strap in his hand before shoving it at Greg. “Get him under control.”

Before Greg had a chance to respond, Callahan strode off. 

“I-,” Anderson stammered. “I didn't know what to do.”

Sherlock ignored the explanation as he attempted to straighten himself back up, face impassive. “The shoes aren't in the rubbish bin, and they're not stolen. They've undoubtedly been returned to their rightful owner.” 

Greg reached out to help Sherlock, then realised he was still holding the strap and threw it to the ground. “Don't worry about the case right now.”

“Of course, I've been removed from the case as well.” Sherlock put one arm into his coat, but flinched when he tried to manoeuvre the other into its sleeve. 

“No! Well, yeah, but just because you're hurt. I think you might be bleeding. Let me take a look.”

Sherlock assessed him with a brittle expression that threatened to shatter at any moment. “Not here.”

Leaving Donovan to deal with the case, Greg helped Sherlock back to the car.

* * *

Annie hissed as Sherlock turned his back to them, and Greg couldn't blame her. Sherlock wasn't bleeding, but the bruising was going to be bloody awful. It wouldn't be comfortable either, not for at least a week. Greg took the camera from Annie's outstretched hands.

“Turn your head. I need to get your face in the photograph.”

“This is a waste of time,” Sherlock replied, for the tenth time, but he turned his head to the side so that Greg could take several photographs while Annie held the light up to his battered back.

“I'm making the report, and your brother's going to want to know about this, too.”

“Yes, I'm sure he'll pin the photographs to his office wall to cheer him when his work gets too dull.” Greg didn't respond, just thumbed through the images on the camera to ensure he had the evidence he needed. Mycroft Holmes had been adamant about his brother's safety since Greg had known him. “Surely you don't still believe his concern is sincere. He can bend the will of some of the most intelligent and powerful men in the country. It's child's play for him to manipulate you.”

Greg ignored the provocation and powered down the camera. “You can put your shirt back on, if you want, but we've got some cream you might want to try.”

“What happened to Sherlock?”

Greg and Annie whirled around to see Emily in the doorway, her little face scrunched in concern at Sherlock's injury. Annie reached out to shepherd her back to her room. “You should be in bed, sweetie.”

“My tummy hurts, and I'm thirsty.” The stomach ache was a new complaint, though Emily had been complaining of thirst near constantly of late. It was an effective ploy to get out of sleeping for a child who'd been confined to bed and sofa for almost a week, made doubly so as she'd been needing the loo constantly as well. She studied Sherlock, who matched her curious stare from across the room. “Did a bad man get you?”

For a moment, Greg was afraid that Sherlock would share the entire story, but he held Emmy's gaze for another moment before sprinting over to sniff at her face. She pulled back from him, accustomed enough to his bizarre behaviour that she wasn't too alarmed at the attention.

“Your daughter has diabetes. You should take her to hospital now.”

Greg frowned at the blatant attempt to change the subject. “She doesn't have diabetes. She's just getting over the flu.”

“No doubt related to the autoimmune response.” Sherlock stood and faced Greg squarely. “She's experiencing ketoacidosis. Constant thirst, frequent urination, fruity breath, abdominal pains.”

“Daddy, what's ketodidosis?”

“Sherlock, stop it. You're scaring her,” Greg ordered him. Truth be told, Annie looked scared as well. She'd set down the lamp and was examining their daughter's face, as if she could somehow produce a diagnosis from Emmy's expression.

“Her fear is much less life threatening than the ketone bodies in her blood.” Sherlock feigned a lack of concern as he put on his shirt and began to button it up. “Of course, I doubt her life is in immediate danger. Her symptoms will continue to escalate, but I'm sure when she begins gasping for breath you'll be convinced enough to take her to hospital before she goes into a coma. Of course, at her age there's always the danger of her brain tissue swelling, but that's not very common.”

At that pronouncement, Annie swung Emily up into her arms. “I'm taking her to hospital.”

* * *

Mycroft Holmes was certainly not a man that Greg ever wanted to cross. Somehow, without changing its expression, his face had communicated exactly how much Callahan was going to suffer for every stripe that he'd lain across Sherlock's back. Sherlock, of course, had resisted every aspect of the conversation, but Mr. Holmes had a way of steamrollering over even the most intractable of his moods. Greg was impressed, and not a little terrified as Mycroft buttoned up his coat in the foyer.

“I understand your daughter is in hospital,” he said, and Greg didn't bother to ask how he knew. He couldn't imagine there was much he could tell Mr. Holmes that he couldn't figure himself, but he had to keep up appearances, for his own sanity if nothing else.

“Oh, yeah. She's going to be fine, though. They're just working out her insulin and then she can come back home.”

“You'll want to get her a shadow, of course.”

Greg shook his head, confused at the suggestion. The NHS only approved medical shadows for the most demanding of cases, and diabetes certainly didn't qualify. “We're going through orientation on Saturday so we can do everything ourselves.”

“Yes, you'll want to take the shadow to orientation. It's already been approved. I'll have someone email you the details, but you should plan to visit the labour centre tomorrow morning.”

“What?” Greg asked, head spinning, and Mr. Holmes gave him a look Greg was familiar with from Sherlock, but without an elaborate description of Greg's idiocy.

“As I said, someone will send you the details. I really must go, but I appreciate your help with Sherlock. I know he can be trying. I hope the shadow will be able to mitigate the strain his presence has put on your family.”

With that, Mr. Holmes left, his debt to Greg repaid, and his debt to Callahan past due.

* * *

The Labour Centre of London was not set up for individuals to navigate. As soon as Greg entered, the carefully contained chaos nearly overwhelmed him. Most of the people milling about seemed to know exactly where they were going, probably representatives of organizations that took in scores of released contracts a year. Greg scanned the signs for the untrained labour section, an irony for a programme that existed to allow people to afford advanced training. Sherlock, of course, seemed more interested in studying the crush of humanity than helping him to find a shadow for Emmy. Greg was trying to cut him some slack considering what he'd just gone through, but the man had been borderline intolerable all morning, a passive aggressive nightmare that Greg only wished he could wake up from. 

Finally, Greg found what they were looking for and dragged Sherlock over.

“Okay, so, we have a list of criteria from NHS. We need someone wh-”

“Him.” Sherlock pointed to a man sitting on a bench and staring at his fingernails. He was short, blond, and middle-aged. Other than his height, there was nothing to distinguish him from those around him, not even the clothing, which was all the same generic military issue.

“What? Why?”

“He's a doctor. Get his contract. There's no need to waste time.”

“Sherlock, none of these people have medical training. We just need someone who can go to the orientation with us and get trained up to help Emmy.”

Sherlock raised an eyebrow in challenge, then swept toward the group.

“Doctor?” he asked, and the man looked up, then sharply back down when he realized what he had done.

Greg grimaced. The only thing worse than a passive aggressive Sherlock was a gloating Sherlock.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to embalmer56, without whose help this fic would probably never have been published.

“Really, Lestrade, it's a wonder criminals haven't completely taken over London with your inability to see what's right in front of your face.”

Greg continued to drive. John Watson, the man Sherlock had selected from the multitude of workers, kept wisely quiet in the back seat after a few exclamations in regards to Sherlock's purported brilliance had only escalated the bickering in front. Greg could admit that Sherlock's reasoning was impressive, though he hadn't appreciated Sherlock's insistence that a man of Watson's age would have no use to the army when it came to his physical prowess, not with Greg himself several years Watson's senior.

As it was, Sherlock had been correct. Watson had been in the Army working off the debt for his medical education when he'd been shot. Had the gunshot wound itself been the reason for the discharge, his debt would have been cancelled, but he'd developed a psychosomatic injury as well, and while he was physically capable of continuing with his medical duties, the psychological problem was enough for him to get struck off the medical register and lose the right to stay in the programme. Watson was indebted to the government for training he was no longer allowed to use.

“Doctor Watson is hungry,” Sherlock said.

“I'm not actually a doctor, any more,” came the measured reply from the back seat. “I could get in trouble if people think I'm presenting myself as one.”

“Ridiculous. You may have been struck off the register, but you've retained all of your knowledge and skills, psychological issues notwithstanding. I wouldn't have chosen you, otherwise, Doctor Watson.”

“Just call him 'John',” Greg said, “and stop trying to cause trouble.”

“ _John_ is hungry, and it's your legal responsibility to ensure that he is fed properly, as we slaves don't get paid for our work and have no means to procure food for ourselves.” 

“Sherlock, stop it!” John's reflection was looking distinctly uncomfortable, and Greg hastened to reassure him. “He knows you're not slaves.”

“Oh, there's no need to be concerned about _John's_ feelings on the matter. _John_ chose to sell himself into slavery to pay for his training, while I was forced into it by my brother.” Greg tried to ignore the deliberate provocation and keep his attention on the road ahead of him as Sherlock continued to needle him. “Don't worry, _John_ , Lestrade is a kind master. Just the other day, after I was beaten, he gave me the nicest soothing cream.”

“Sherlock!” Greg snapped, then winced when he realized that his own fit of temper would only exacerbate John's discomfort. “Just stop talking. Please.”

“But I was telling him that you were kind, like when you released me from the cupboard after your wife had shut me in there,” Sherlock replied with an innocence that didn't fool Greg for a second.

Knowing that anything he said would just serve to provoke Sherlock further, Greg looked to the back, where John had his head bowed, buried in his hands, and was literally shaking in his seat.

“John?” Greg prompted him softly.

“I'm sorry,” John said, face still covered and voice quivering as his body shook even harder. “Really, I...”

Suddenly, Sherlock let out an outraged gasp and turned an accusing glare on John. “You're laughing!”

* * *

They came to an odd equilibrium in the next few weeks, with John somehow fitting into their lives and stabilising all the wobbly bits. He stayed in Emmy's room, waking every few hours to test her blood as she slept. It was strange to see another man so much closer to his daughter in so many ways. John pricked her and poked her and denied her sweets, and still Emmy clung to him. It was almost a relief when she finally broke down, and no surprise that it started with Sherlock.

Greg heard her shouting in her room, punctuated by the soothing murmur of John's voice.

“No! Go away!”

Greg hurried over and found Emmy sitting on her bed, tears running down her face as John tried to comfort her. Sherlock stood above both of them, with a bloodied test strip pinched between his fingers. He'd been a terror for the past couple of weeks, and the few yarders who were willing to work around him only survived by ignoring his existence. Sherlock seemed buoyed by the recent lack of social interaction, which only increased his thirst for cases and subsequent antisocial behaviour. 

“Lestrade, I'm held here against my will, and now you're exposing me to blood born pathogens, clearly a violation of health and safety regulations.”

“For God's sake, Sherlock, throw it away,” Greg snapped, picking Emmy up and settling down on the bed with her in his lap. He kissed the top of her head and brushed away the strands of hair clinging to her damp cheeks. “What's the matter, baby?”

“I don't want a jab,” she sniffled and burrowed into him. “Tell John to leave me alone. And Sherlock, too.”

As John bent to pick up the glucose monitor that Emily had apparently thrown to the floor, Greg wrapped his arms around her. She was getting so big, and he wondered how much longer she'd allow him to cuddle her like that. “What's your blood?”

She shook her head into his shirt, and John answered. “A hundred and eighty.”

“This is a biohazard, Lestrade,” Sherlock said, still holding the used test strip.

“No, it's not! Go away!” Emmy shouted at him.

“Sherlock, please just throw that away and go back to your room,” Greg pleaded, then turned back to his daughter. “Baby, you need a correction. You don't want to go back to hospital.”

“We'll all be in hospital if she continues to leave bloodied strips of paper all about the flat. This was next to my bed,” Sherlock said.

“Sherlock!” John barked out, his voice holding enough authority that even Greg straightened up at it, and he felt Emmy's fingers tighten on his shirt. “Go to your room.”

Sherlock paled, opened and closed his mouth soundlessly, then spun on his heels and left, presumably for his room. John let out a breath and his command persona fell away just as quickly as it had been assumed, leaving Emmy stunned in Greg's arms.

“Did John's Army voice scare you?” he asked her, and she nodded, biting her lip as she eyed John warily.

“That voice is for grown ups who act like children, not for actual children like you,” John assured her as he measured out the insulin dose. “Now, show me your brave face.”

Emmy lifted her head and jutted out her chin at the command, and John quickly administered the injection.

“That's my girl,” Greg said, straightening her shirt and combing out her hair with his fingers. “Do you think you can say something to John about shouting at him when he was trying to help you?”

“Sorry, John,” Emmy chanted obediently, then reached out to give him an apologetic hug.

Sherlock appeared in the doorway, wrinkling his nose at the treacly scene in front of him. “If you can extricate yourself from this domestic drama, we appear to have another case.” Greg rolled his eyes at Sherlock's dismissal of his own participation in the drama, and wondered how Sherlock could possibly know of the case without breaking into Greg's mobile. He was about to ask as much when Sherlock hastened away from Emmy's room, shouting, “Hurry, Lestrade, before the corpse gets too soggy!”

“Biohazard,” John mouthed at him with a sardonic grin, and Greg ran off before Sherlock tried to solve the case without him.

* * *

Anderson was already there, hovering over the body. He looked up at Greg's arrival, only slightly flinching when he saw Sherlock beside him. “He didn't drown, I can tell you that. He was strangled before he was dumped, probably yesterday morning.”

“No doubt a criminal he's put in prison, or an associate of one,” Sherlock answered, crouching down next to the body.

Anderson handed him a pair of gloves and continued with his own investigation. “What are you on about?”

“He's a crown prosecutor, which you would realize if you took the time to notice the evidence in front of you.”

“Sherlock,” Greg warned before turning back to Anderson. “Have you checked for a wallet?”

“We were waiting for you.” Anderson fished the sodden wallet out of the man's coat pocket, then flipped though the contents. “Andrew Rhodes.”

Donovan nodded and stepped away to phone for more information.

“Andrew Rhodes the crown prosecutor in London?” Sherlock asked smugly, standing and brandishing Greg's own mobile, which he'd used to look up the victim's Linked In page. 

Greg snatched the mobile back from him. “Stop picking my pocket,” he hissed. “If you touch my phone again, you'll be waiting in the car.”

“I've got an address, and it looks like a wife and a couple kids,” Anderson continued, ignoring Sherlock's antics.

“The wife reported him missing yesterday evening,” Donovan reported. “She could know about anyone out there who might want him dead.”

Sherlock snorted. “The man put criminals in jail for a living. Of course people wanted him dead, many of them with criminal records.”

“Yeah, okay, and check to see whether anyone he's put away has gotten out recently,” Greg answered Donovan, and she acknowledged the instruction and left the area, also wise enough not to rise to Sherlock's bait. “And Sherlock, stop being such a smart arse, or go wait in the car.”

Ignoring him, Sherlock bent back down to examine the body more closely, holding his hand up to the bruising on the neck.

“Approximately 170 centimetres, male, left handed, and with large hands for his height. Most likely some sort of military or martial arts training, not nearly as strong as the ease with which he killed Mr. Rhodes would suggest. Oh, and he was killed in public, just as he left Costa Coffee before arriving at work,” he reported, taking a photograph of the bruising with Greg's mobile.

It was good information, and no doubt completely accurate. Greg, though, was in no mood for it, not when his mobile phone was in Sherlock's hands for the third time in the past hour. Greg took it back with one hand and grabbed Sherlock's elbow with the other, steering him back to the police car.

“How is a man killed in broad daylight in the middle of London without anyone noticing?” Sherlock mused before noticing and scoffing at Greg's stern expression. “I wouldn't need to use your mobile if I were allowed one of my own.”

Knowing that Sherlock understood exactly why he was being confined, Greg said nothing, just pulled out his handcuffs and motioned for Sherlock to hold out his wrists. They were nominal restraints, as Sherlock had proven himself quite capable of picking them, but Greg was making a point. Once Sherlock had been cuffed, Greg opened the door to the back of the police car and ushered him in.

“Leave those on,” he said, pointing the cuffs. He didn't wait for any smart arse remarks or insolent faces before closing the door and returning to the body.

Anderson was already pulling off his gloves. There wasn't much to look over, as the body hadn't been found at the scene of the crime. Sherlock had given them a running start on where to start looking, and if the murder had been in broad daylight, there would certainly be some sort of evidence of it on CCTV. Of course, finding the footage would involved knowing exactly where the murder took place, and “right outside Costa Coffee” didn't exactly narrow the location down. 

“Are you done with the body, then?” someone asked him, and Greg nodded. They'd get anything else they needed in the autopsy.

He walked back to the car, where he could see Sherlock waving his arms around in the ostentatious process of searching through his 'mind palace'. Gritting his teeth at the flagrant defiance, Greg opened the car door.

“I told you to leave the handcuffs on.”

“And so I did.” Sherlock held up his right wrist to display both cuffs locked securely around it.

“Why, Sherlock?” He grabbed Sherlock's arm and unlocked the handcuffs. “Why do you provoke me? Or anyone for that matter?”

Sherlock rubbed his liberated wrist and stared silently off into the middle distance.

“You steal things you could just ask for, you're inexcusably rude to people who are trying to help you. There's no purpose, and you're blatant about it. We've all been trying to be patient with you after what happened with Callahan, but you've got to stop this.”

Sherlock's face clouded over. “If you think this is about Callahan-”

“Yeah, I know. You don't care about him.” Sherlock's ferocious apathy about Callahan had reached its zenith when Donovan had let them know that he'd been transferred out of London. Apparently her idiocy in thinking that Sherlock would be at all interested in the information was enough to trigger a devastating string of public deductions that had left the sergeant unwilling to look anyone in the eyes for several days. Despite the cruelty, she'd asked the disciplinary committee to let him off with a warning, an indulgence that many had extended him since the incident. “You're acting like a child.”

“Ah, yes, your favourite insult. And now you'll threaten to put me in the naughty chair or wash my mouth out with soap.” Sherlock smirked at him, and the self-satisfaction was nearly enough to convince Greg to drive him straight back to NSY, dump him there, and let them sort him out.

“Don't tempt me, Sherlock. I am at my wits' end.”

“To be fair, with the wits you apparently have at your disposal, it shouldn't take too long to reach the end of them.”

“Lestrade!” A voice was calling him back to the scene, probably to sign off on moving the body. Greg directed a fulminating glare at Sherlock, who shifted slightly back at whatever he deduced from Greg's face.

“When we get home,” he bit out, and shut the door on Sherlock's startled expression.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to Embalmer56, who kept with me for months as I muddled through this.

To be honest, Greg hadn't known exactly what he had been threatening Sherlock with when they got home. Sherlock had certainly deduced that fact, and was wondering what the future held in store for him. He'd sat in the passenger seat on the way back, eyes periodically flickering over Greg in a futile attempt to divine his intentions. Sherlock had clearly hit a limit, though, of Greg's willingness to tolerate his atrocious behaviour.

When they finally reached the door to the flat, and opened it to find themselves alone, Greg turned to Sherlock and cocked his head toward the back. “The loo.”

Sherlock's eyes widened in realization. “You can't be serious.”

“Now,” Greg commanded him, and Sherlock made his way there, occasionally turning back to analyse Greg's current expression.

Greg followed him inside, then closed the lid on the toilet. “Sit down.”

Sherlock sat, uncertainty and resentment warring on his face. Greg let him stew while taking a bar of soap and rinsing underneath the tap. Steeling himself, he faced Sherlock. “Open up.”

For a moment, he thought Sherlock might refuse. There was a strange hesitation in his eyes, and he looked toward the door as if someone might appear to deliver him from his predicament. When the only deliverance came in the form of Greg's patience, Sherlock took a deep breath and opened his mouth.

Greg placed the bar of soap halfway inside, and Sherlock closed his teeth around it without being asked.

“Now, we are going to have a conversation. I'm going to talk, and you're going to listen, and nod and shake your head when appropriate. Is that clear?”

Sherlock stared at him defiantly above the bar of soap protruding from his lips, and Greg's irritation fell away as he began to appreciate the absurdity of the situation.

“This is going to take a lot longer if you can't keep up with your half of the conversation, don't you agree?”

Sherlock let out an irritated breath, then nodded reluctantly.

“Brilliant.” Greg leaned back against the sink, perhaps enjoying the reprieve that the impromptu gag afforded him a little too much. Without Sherlock's sharp tongue grating at his ears, Greg was reminded of why he'd taken Sherlock in. The man was rude, impetuous, and completely intractable, but he was brilliant, and he had a good heart, obscured as it was by all the detritus he'd filled his massive brain with. “You've not been very polite to those around you recently, have you?”

Sherlock shook his head.

“You've insulted our intelligence, you've taken our things without asking, and you've refused to listen to us when we've been talking to you, haven't you?”

Sherlock nodded.

“I think this behaviour has to stop. Don't you agree?”

Sherlock rolled his eyes, and Greg raised his eyebrows in warning.

“Was that a yes or a no? Do you agree that your behaviour has to change?”

Sherlock closed his eyes and crinkled his nose in frustration, then sighed and nodded.

“And you'll be making efforts in that area in the immediate future?”

Apparently more at ease with his compliance, Sherlock nodded more freely, and Greg took the soap from his mouth and clapped him on the shoulder. “Okay, you can rinse.”

After spitting several times into the sink, Sherlock turned on the tap and stuck his tongue directly beneath it, then filled his cupped palm with water and did his best to rinse the soap residue from the rest of his mouth. “That is revolting.”

“It can't be that bad,” Greg told him, rummaging around for the bottle of mouthwash, then handing it over. “It's green tea and cucumber.”

“Hilarious. And you call me childish.” Sherlock opened the mouthwash and poured an excessive amount into his mouth, swishing it furiously.

With a playful grin, Greg bit into the soap. “Delicious!” he exclaimed around the chunk in his mouth, barely managing not to gag at the taste.

“You are, without question, the most-” Sherlock cut himself off before finishing the insult, instead expressing his scorn though a loud huff that Greg considered a marked improvement on his earlier behaviour.

“I love it,” he gurgled on the foam, doing his best to avoid letting any of the disgusting suds slide down his throat.

Just before Sherlock left the room, Greg caught a twitch at the corner of his lips, the small beginning of an emotion that he was doing his utmost to hide.

* * *

“Honestly, Sherlock, it's certainly not the first time you've had your mouth washed out with soap.”

Mycroft Holmes sat at the kitchen table with Sherlock and Greg, ignoring his tea, which was probably far too pedestrian for his tastes. Greg wondered what sort of posh tea the elder Holmes preferred, and tried to keep his head down as the vitriol flew back and forth between the brothers. Annie and John had taken the children out, ostensibly to get school clothes for Jack, but in reality to keep them away from the arguments that commonly exploded during the brothers' weekly supervised visits. Greg, of course, had to stay, and just did his best to stay out of the crossfire.

“What was it?” Mr. Holmes needled his brother. “Lying? Rudeness? I assume you didn't bite anyone, and you've never been one for profanity.”

“And I assume your recent propensity for inane questions is a futile attempt to keep your mouth occupied so you don't continually stuff it with cake.”

“Rudeness, then,” Mr. Holmes determined, folding his hands in front of himself with enough condescension that even Greg started to feel for Sherlock. “Unless you were forced to actually swallow the soap, I really don't see the problem.”

“It's a punishment for children!”

“Yes, and quite fittingly so.” He straightened himself in what Greg recognized as preparation for a long winded rebuke. “Since you began working with Detective Inspector Lestrade, he's shown patience and kindness in the face of the most abominable of behaviour. There's been no indication that he has anything but your best interests at heart, and you, in turn, have acted like a spoiled brat. If he wanted to pull down your trousers and smack your bottom, he would have my full support, and sincere hope that it would have a positive effect on your behaviour.”

Sherlock, whose breathing had become more and more laboured as the lecture continued, suddenly stood violently, toppling his chair as he stalked back to his room and slammed the door.

Mycroft turned his wry expression back to Greg. “My brother likes you.”

“That's what you got out of that conversation?”

“Sherlock likes to push boundaries, but he's well aware of where those boundaries lie. He knew that I'd support your decision in disciplining him.” Holmes raised an eyebrow at Greg's continued lack of comprehension. “My brother doesn't accept discipline from many people. Apparently you are one of the few, or he would have been far too prideful to tell me what had happened.”

The twisted logic was enough to make Greg's head spin, but he didn't have time to dwell on it, as Annie, John, and the kids walked through the door. Jack was already wearing a new shirt, and quickly ran to show it off, with Emmy close on his heels. Greg was caught up in a whirlwind of hugs and kisses and demands of “Daddy, look!” and barely noticed as Mycroft Holmes made a quick escape from the surfeit of familial affection.

* * *

Without an exact time and location for the murder, the investigation had degenerated into searching through hours and hours of CCTV footage. The sheer drudgery was overwhelming, but it was the perfect job for someone who couldn't be trusted to open his mouth without insulting half of his colleagues. 

Sherlock didn't seem to mind, either, and Greg finally just set him up with a laptop back at home, where John seemed to tolerate him far more easily than could anyone at NSY. In fact, they'd got on well enough that Greg had been comfortable moving John's lilo to Sherlock's room, in an effort to get Emmy back into a normal routine.

The search consumed Sherlock to the point that he stayed holed up in his room, giving Greg, as well as the rest of the Met, a welcome respite from his antics. Greg needed all the relief he could get with Annie out of town for her security conference. When she finally returned on Thursday evening, they decided to take everyone out to eat.

It was no surprise that Sherlock was still in his room as everyone else prepared to leave. Greg paused in his search for his son's hat to enlist him to bring Sherlock back to the foyer.

“He's not hungry,” Jack said, familiar with the routine of asking Sherlock to eat with the family.

“I know, Jackie, but tell him he has to come anyway.”

Jack ran off, and Greg began to help his daughter sort through the diabetes supplies she was packing into the camera bag he'd just given her for that purpose.

“Daddy, you know how Jack's name is John but we call him Jack? Well, John's name is John, but his mum and dad and sister called him 'Johnny', and he said I can call him Johnny, too, if I want to.”

Before Greg had a chance to respond, a high pitched squeal sounded from Sherlock's room, followed by Jack's voice. “Do it again!”

Greg went to investigate, and was treated to another squeal and “Again!” before arriving to see Sherlock shove his son across the room, hard enough that the boy tripped over the Ikea sofa bed and landed in a pile of giggles. Scrambling up, he saw Greg in the doorway.

“Daddy, look!” Jack shouted, then ran back up to Sherlock, who sat at the desk ignoring them both as he studied the laptop screen. “Daddy says you have to come to dinner.”

“Go away,” Sherlock muttered, again shoving Jack, who gleefully careened across the room and back to the sofa bed. The only indication that Sherlock was even aware of him was the slight twitch of his lips.

“Jack, go ask Mummy to help you get your coat on,” Greg said, and Jack ran off obediently. Greg closed the laptop in Sherlock's hands. “We're going out to eat.”

“No time,” Sherlock said. “There's a case.”

“You've been searching through the video for a day and a half. You need to eat something and have some minor social interaction that doesn't involve throwing my son across the room. You're not going to find the killer in the next half hour.”

“It doesn't matter about the killer,” Sherlock told him, standing and grabbing his coat from the back of the chair. “There's no time because he killed again this afternoon. I imagine they'll find the body within the hour. We should be ready.”

“And how do you know this?”

“Zombies,” Sherlock replied, starting to open the laptop again.

Greg ran a hand over his face and placed the other firmly on the top of the computer. “Just get into your coat. We'll be around the corner if they ring me.”

Sherlock put on his coat and scarf and followed Greg to the entryway, where the rest of the family had just filed out. Greg paused to lock up behind them, and so was a few steps behind Sherlock when they heard the shouts.

They got to the street just in time to see a hooded figure dart around the corner, Emmy's bag in hand. Greg cursed himself for giving her the camera case. Of course an eight year old girl with what looked like an expensive camera would make a tempting target. As he turned to see whether she was hurt, he noticed that John had taken off after the thief.

“I'll cut him off!” Sherlock shouted, and ran off down a completely different alley.

“Wait!” Greg called out to both of them, but it was too late. They were gone, and he had more pressing matters, looking after his shaken daughter. Emmy began to cry, and he picked her up and held her to him, ignoring the twinge in his back that told him she was getting too big for this particular form of comfort.

“It's okay, sweetie. You're okay,” he said.

“Greg,” Annie prompted him, then indicated the pavement where John's cane lay, forgotten in the heat of the pursuit.

* * *

It took only ten minutes for John and Sherlock to return, Emmy's bag in hand. John handed it back to Annie as he tried to catch his breath. 

Despite the exertion, he seemed more cheerful than Greg had ever seen him. Sherlock, too, was in good spirits, grinning at his partner in crime, or partner in fighting crime, as it were.

“He dropped it when he realized we weren't giving up.” Sherlock explained. “Apparently he expected less of a fight from two children, a woman, and a cripple.”

“I'm not a cripple!”

“Clearly.” Sherlock picked the cane up from the ground.

John stared at the cane, then to his leg. After a moment of contemplation, he turned back to a very pleased Sherlock. “Don't look so smug, you pompous arse,” John laughed.

Sherlock's grin only broadened, even as Emily hugged and thanked them both. Greg was torn between thanking them himself and warning them against running off after criminals. He compromised by directing everyone back toward the restaurant.

“We can't, Lestrade. Surely the police have found the body by now.”

Greg rolled his eyes. “There's no body, Sherlock. Unless I get a phone call telling me differently, we're going to eat dinner.”

Brow furrowed, Sherlock held his ground. Greg was just reaching out to pull him along with everyone else when his mobile rang.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to Embalmer56 for her beta skills and moral support.

“All right, out with it. How did you know?” Greg asked once they were on the road.

“The man was killed in broad daylight in a populated area. There was no way that the murderer wouldn't be seen, so it had to be disguised in some way. I searched through the video for anything out of the ordinary that could conceal a man being strangled, and found this.”

Sherlock raised the laptop into Greg's field of vision, and Greg swatted it away. “Not while I'm driving.” He glanced at the screen out of the corner of his eye, trying to see whether there was anything there other than the sea of umbrellas.

“What is that, some sort of Mary Poppins convention?”

“It's a flash mob,” Sherlock explained. “Over two hundred people converged on this intersection with umbrellas in the middle of a sunny day. They were there for several minutes, then dispersed. The papers reported it as some sort of activism for a theory called 'climate change', the idea that human activity is dangerously affecting global temperatures.”

“I know what climate change is, Sherlock.”

“Really? No wonder you can't see what's right in front of you, when you spend your time worrying about the state of the atmosphere. I looked it up, and it was a complete dead end when it came to the case.”

Stopping at an intersection, Greg turned to see that Sherlock was entirely serious. “Wait, you'd really never heard of climate change?”

“Do try to stay focussed, Lestrade. Rhodes went into the coffee shop, the flash mob arrived, and he never came out, or at least not that the cameras picked up. The killer used the mob to obscure what he was doing.”

“You're telling me we have a conspiracy of over two hundred people who worked together to kill this man.”

“Don't be ridiculous. Only one killed him; the rest actually thought they were there to protest this 'climate change' nonsense.”

Greg ignored Sherlock's dismissal of climate change in favour of a much more immediate problem. “So when you say you've found the killer, what you actually mean is that you've found a video that includes the killer's umbrella in a sea of hundreds of other umbrellas, and you have no idea which one it might be.”

“I know it's one near the coffee shop.”

“Sherlock, that'll be like finding a needle in a haystack,” Greg complained, and Sherlock shook his head.

“More like finding a needle in a stack of needles, when you actually want the string that was once threaded through it, but yes.” He cheerfully clacked away on the keyboard. “Oh, and we also have this, the second flash mob that alerted me to the most recent murder.”

Sherlock held the laptop aloft, and Greg tried to swat it away again, then did a double take at what he saw on the screen. “Zombies? You're telling me a zombie killed this bloke.”

“I know!” Sherlock exclaimed, pulling the laptop back to himself and examining the screen with glee. “It's Christmas.”

* * *

They pulled up to the site, Sherlock jumping from the car before Greg had a chance to take the keys of the ignition. The zombie victim was Owen Hammond, a retired engineer and local magistrate, also strangled, but dumped in a rubbish bin rather than the river. Sherlock made a five second pass over the victim before declaring it a waste of his and everyone else's time. Forensics appreciated Sherlock's disinterest, as it meant they didn't have to worry about anyone contaminating the evidence, which was much more promising without an hours long stint in the river, but the analysis would take time. In the meantime, they had a list of sentenced offenders to cross reference, and two flash mobs to catalogue.

“Find out who called for the flash mobs, we'll find who planned the murder,” Donovan said. “There are enough people in these videos, it won't take long to identify someone.”

“Let's keep this quiet,” Greg told her. “If we can find out how they're communicating with these people, we may be able to stop the next murder before it happens.”

* * *

Donovan identified three potential witnesses before mid-morning, and Greg and she set off to interview them, leaving an infuriated Sherlock behind. His observational skills had their use, but he'd been known to reduce more than one witness to tears, and they were still trying to keep a low profile when it came to their knowledge of the killer's methods.

Besides, political activists didn't exactly have a reputation for eager cooperation with police investigations.

“I don't have to answer your questions,” Devon Culley informed them, his insistence supported by the smirks of the other students sitting in his tiny flat. “This is police harassment. It's not illegal to dance on the streets, and it's not illegal to have secrets.”

“It is when those secrets involve murder.”

Culley's eyes widened at Greg's revelation, and he stepped out of the flat, shutting the door behind him. “What?”

“Your flash mob was used to cover a murder, which makes you a conspirator.”

“Look, mate, I didn't know about all that. We're just trying to have fun, make a little statement.”

Greg ignored Culley's reassurances, letting him stew for a bit while Donovan picked up the line of questioning. “How did you find out about the event?”

“There's a message board. Someone posted about it. I can give you the URL.”

* * *

The post was gone, but it didn't take long for cyber to get enough information to confirm Culley's story. The message board served as an online meeting place for idealists who wanted to change the world, mainly through disrupting everyone else's routine and provoking the government. The owner handed over the web logs, not that they were much use. The poster had used some sort of onion routing, and cyber assured him that it would be impossible to identify the original source of the post. After he called Annie and even she told him there was no way to trace the post, he'd given up and handed Sherlock the logs, hoping there was some nugget of information hidden away in the reams of text.

Four hours later, he had the list of sentenced offenders that had connections to both Rhodes and Hammond, as well as seven more identified participants in the flash mobs. When he arrived at the isolated corner Sherlock preferred to work in, though, the man was gone. A cursory search of the office turned up nothing.

“Donovan, have you seen Sherlock? He's gone.”

“I don't question my blessings, Lestrade.” She went back to her paperwork, and Greg sighed.

“He's in my custody. I have to find him.”

Donovan looked up in irritation. “You're the only one who can talk to him without wanting to punch him in the face. Where's he going to go? How's he going to get there? He doesn't have any money for the tube. He-”

They stared at each other, and Greg began to check his pockets. He had his phone and his wallet, but his front left pocket was ominously empty.

“He took your warrant card, again, didn't he?” Donovan asked, not needing an answer. “Brilliant.”

Greg ground his teeth together. The photo would keep Sherlock from doing too much damage with the warrant card, but he'd have no problem using it to get on the tube. He could be anywhere.

“You have to make a report, Lestrade. This is out of control.”

Pinching the bridge of his nose against his growing headache, Greg returned to his office to email the programme about Sherlock's latest misconduct. Before he had a chance to compose the report, a message entitled, _Read now_ , caught his eye. He clicked on it.

_Found posts. Returning soon._

Attached were two HTML files, containing the two respective posts calling for the flash mobs in question. Greg forwarded them on, grimacing at Sherlock's success. Of course the bastard would believe that all his actions were justified by the evidence he'd found. Sighing, Greg completed the misconduct report and began to study the posts.

Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, just a general description of what the flash mob would look like, instructions for time and place, everything one would expect in an innocuous post for young people who had entirely too much time on their hands. He continued to study them until his office door opened and his warrant card fell on the desk in front of him.

“I need to study the posts more closely,” Sherlock said. “There's something odd about them.”

Greg took his warrant card from the desk and stuffed it back in his pocket, where it belonged. “Why in the world would you think it acceptable-”

“The logs, Lestrade,” Sherlock turned Greg's laptop towards himself and began to type. “I noticed something odd about the access patterns of one of the IP addresses. Every hour to the second, it was cycling through the new posts, but directly, in the order of the post id number, rather than first accessing any threads or the board as a whole. Clearly someone was scraping the data, which meant it was being converted into-”

“I don't care how you knew!” Greg snapped. “I care that you stole my warrant card, ran off without permission, defrauded the London Underground, and probably got this evidence under false pretences.”

Sherlock cocked his head at Greg, eyes flickering over Greg's stony expression. “Oh,” he said, as if seeing Greg for the first time, then turned just in time to see the representative from the disciplinary committee appear in the doorway.

* * *

Sherlock was curled into the sofa bed, which he hadn't even bothered to unfold the night before. His clothes were still on, and several blankets cocooned haphazardly around him. Greg sat himself softly on the sofa by Sherlock's feet. 

“I know you're angry at me, but I'm not sorry because I think I did the right thing. You broke the law and put yourself in danger, and I was mandated to report you.”

Sherlock burrowed further into his blankets and hid his face in the back of the sofa. He'd been sulking since the disciplinary committee had handed down their decision, which had initially seemed unreasonably lenient, even for a programme that focussed on rehabilitation rather than punishment. 

He'd been asked to write a letter of apology to Greg detailing why it had been wrong to steal the warrant card and what restitutions he planned to make. When Sherlock had only sat there silently, passively resisting the entire proceedings, they told him that he could give Greg a verbal apology instead. Upon being ignored again, the committee had told him that he could take five strikes with the strap, and they'd assume that was his choice if he said nothing. He'd remained silent, probably off in dark corner of his mind palace, but had allowed them to draw him up from the chair. When he didn't respond with their requests for him to take off his coat, they'd finally just bent him over the table, flipped up the coat, and delivered the strikes to the seat of his trousers.

Of course, Sherlock had subsequently refused to leave, and Greg had been summoned to take him home. He'd been ignoring everyone ever since, and Greg was tired of it.

“I have to go to NSY for a bit, but I'll be back by the afternoon, and I want to see you out of bed. You've sulked over this enough.”

Sherlock didn't answer him, and Greg just shook his head and left for NSY, where there'd been absolutely no progress on analysing the posts that Sherlock had retrieved. The poster had created an account particularly for one time use, and no one could find anything meaningful in the chosen avatar, username, or use of language. Greg was tempted to put Sherlock back on the case. It would surely make Sherlock easier to deal with, but it would also send a terrible message about the ends justifying the means.

Greg shook the idea from his head as he took the tube back home. The Met had operated for almost two hundred years without Sherlock Holmes, and it could certainly survive the three day ad hoc suspension that Greg had imposed upon him. It was certainly better than the possibility that Sherlock would go back to prison, which the disciplinary committee had made clear would happen if he continued to post a 'flight risk'.

Greg wasn't, however, completely without compassion, especially when Sherlock's brother had phoned to say that he'd be making a visit, and he stopped on the walk back to his flat to get some of the biscuits he knew Sherlock favoured. He opened the door prepared to bribe Sherlock out of bed if need be. He wasn't prepared to find Annie, John and Sherlock bent together over Annie's laptop, excitedly chattering about whatever they were watching on the screen.

“What's going on?”

“Greg!” Annie's face lit up with excitement. “I was just about to text you. We found something.”

Greg joined them on the sofa, and looked at the screen, which showed the text of what looked to be an email, and an incriminating one at that. At the top it listed Andrew Rhodes' name and email address. If the information was correct, it would appear that the prosecutor had been taking money to pursue certain cases, cases that otherwise would not have been prosecuted.

“Where did you get this?” Greg asked. “And why are you working on the case?”

Annie switched windows to a similar document, but for Owen Hammond. “The text was hidden in the user pictures.”

“I knew there was something odd about the colouring,” Sherlock explained. “They didn't flow properly from one pixel to the next, so I asked your wife what could cause it.”

Greg squinted at the image in front of him, zoomed in to the point that each pixel was a distinct square on the screen. It was true that the colours changed slightly and in no discernible pattern, but that was normal when digital images were enlarged.

“Usually that's just compression,” Annie explained. “But png is a lossless format, so it didn't make any sense. So I looked that the RGBA codes for the image.” She pulled up another document, filled with columns of numbers and letters. “Here, where the image is black, the red channel is always at zero or one, but all the other channels vary between zero and three. So, whatever was happening, it was happening in the two least significant bits of each channel, and the second least significant bit in the red channel was always zero. When I looked at the red channel for the rest of the image, the second least significant bit was still always zero.”

When the numbers and letters started swimming in front of him, Greg closed his eyes. “Annie, I have no idea what you're talking about.”

Sherlock, who'd been trying valiantly to contain himself while Annie explained the technical details, finally broke. “Someone was hiding information in the images, changing them just enough that it wouldn't be noticed without careful examination.”

“I pulled out the information from each of the pixels, and when I converted it to ASCII, we got gibberish.”

“Gibberish in the form of text,” clarified Sherlock. “It had been encrypted using a Vigenère cipher.”

“Which you cracked,” Greg said, stunned.

Annie laughed and kissed him. “Don't act so impressed. There were instructions on Wikipedia.”

“It was incredible,” John added, settling down in his chair.

“You're brilliant,” he told his wife, quickly returning the kiss before turning to Sherlock. “And you're supposed to be off the case.”

“You can't order me not to think, as naturally as lack of critical thought may come to you.”

Greg gave him a warning look, which Sherlock blithely ignored.

“Again, you're missing what's right in front of you, the most interesting aspect of the development. The cipher they used has been obsolete for over a century. Whoever put this in there wanted people to read it. It's a message to the police, set at just the level that a investigative force would be sure to catch it, while it just avoided the notice of the masses.”

Just what London needed, a hacker vigilante with hundreds of anti-government activists in his pocket. “Who could have done this?”

Annie shrugged. “Anyone, really. I'd say that out of the tech people I work with, most of them could hack together a script for it in about fifteen minutes.”

“You need me on this case,” Sherlock said.

“I'll think about it,” Greg told him, knowing that it wouldn't take long for Sherlock to wear him down. Sherlock apparently knew as well, and didn't even bother to hide the self satisfied grin at his imminent reinstatement. Greg threw up his hands in defeat. “Fine. Monday. And I bought you those biscuits you like, you overindulged monster.”

Greg tossed him the box of biscuits, and Sherlock caught them handily, then stopped and eyed Greg with suspicion.

“There's more. You wouldn't have bought these for me, otherwise.” Comprehension dawned on Sherlock's face, and he threw the box down as if scalded. “Mycroft is coming.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Christmas to everyone, especially Embalmer56, who betaed this and every chapter.

Sherlock's cheer at the breakthrough in the case lasted just as long as it took his brother to arrive at the door. Somehow, all the goodwill that Greg had worked for evaporated under the influence of Mycroft Holmes, who was livid at Sherlock's latest transgression. He towered over his brother, who sat at the table seemingly oblivious to the elder Holmes' blistering rebuke.

“Mr. Holmes, the disciplinary committee has already gone over this with him,” Greg reminded him.

“Yes, and I will go over it again, because my brother is obstinately refusing to learn from his mistakes.” Mycroft's lack of emotional control was startlingly out of character. A vein in his forehead throbbed ominously as he clenched the handle of his umbrella, which appeared to serve as the only tether to his usual unflappable demeanour. “For God's sake, Sherlock, all you had to do was apologize.”

“Apologize?” Sherlock scoffed. “I obtained crucial evidence to catch a serial killer, and in return they beat me.”

“You can stop the childish whining. I saw the disciplinary report. You stole something and ran away. Later, when you were told to apologize to those whom you'd inconvenienced and whose efforts to ensure your safety you had sabotaged, you refused and were subsequently spanked.”

Sherlock's face hardened at his brother's interpretation of the events. “You enjoy this. You like the idea of me being beaten down. It's what you've wanted since childhood.”

The fire in Mr. Holmes' expression suddenly became ice, and he levelled a piercing stare on his brother. “On the contrary, Sherlock, I have no desire for anyone to beat you, and it's my utmost hope that you stop giving them _reasons_ to do so.”

Sherlock sucked in a breath at the statement. Without warning, he was standing, his fist clenched tight and heading straight toward Mycroft's face. Greg stood as well, but before he could do anything, Mycroft had already ducked the blow and had Sherlock's wrist caught in his hand. Breathing a sigh of relief, Greg reached out to calm Sherlock, and was close enough to feel the whisper of air as Mycroft slapped Sherlock across the face. Everything seemed to stop for a moment, with Sherlock stricken in his brother's grip, mouth agape and eyes watering. He stood frozen on the spot as Mr. Holmes leaned in to speak directly in his ear.

“Do not test me, little brother. You are here, in this home, solving cases, at my indulgence. You are one phone call away from being back in prison, or in the Met's dormitories, scrubbing floors and toilets.”

Sherlock's entire face compressed with the effort of containing his emotions, and he pulled half-heartedly at Mycroft's grip on his wrist. “If Mummy finds out-”

“She'll be very grateful that I'm doing all in my power to keep you alive. Do you think her greatest fear is seeing her little boy in prison, when drug addicts are found dead in alleys every day?” Sherlock looked away, fleeing into his mind when physical escape proved impossible. Mr. Holmes released him and turned back to Greg. “I apologize for the unpleasantness, Detective Inspector Lestrade. Please let me know if there's any way that I can help to ensure my brother's future compliance.”

Greg ignored Mr. Holmes as he collected his things and left the flat, more interested in Sherlock's well-being. He took Sherlock's chin between his finger and thumb, and manoeuvred the injured side of Sherlock's face into the light. “Let me see that.”

“I'm fine,” Sherlock insisted, studiously avoiding eye contact as he allowed Greg to inspect the damage. Four thick red lines in the shape of Mycroft's fingers formed across Sherlock's cheek, but Greg was more concerned with the emotional fallout. He'd never seen Sherlock so shaken.

“He shouldn't have hit you.”

Sherlock's features contorted until he looked almost inhuman, a creature comprised solely of scorn and animosity. “For the sake of time, Lestrade, let's skip the bit where you pretend to care and move on to the bit where I solve the cases you're too incompetent to solve on your own while you enjoy the stipend you're paid for housing me.”

The rigid expression only highlighted the red tinge at the edges of Sherlock's eyes. His fingers were trembling, breath rapid as he stared steadfastly into the distance. His weaponised anger beat feebly against Greg's ears, and it didn't take much for Greg's hand to slide from Sherlock's chin to his shoulder, where it rubbed a few soothing strokes into his upper arm.

“All right, let's not get too worked up.”

Sherlock didn't resist the comfort, remaining stiff and still under Greg's hand, the customary juxtaposition of his compliance and vehement protestations continuing as if Sherlock had put himself on autopilot. “This won't work, this pedestrian attempt to form some of emotional bond between us. Do you really think that I could become attached to someone whose intellectual capacity...”

Greg tuned out the insults and gently shushed Sherlock as he pulled him completely into an embrace. He could feel the hard outline of each of Sherlock's ribs, shuddering and heaving as Sherlock tried to support his tirade. As tall as he was, there wasn't much to Sherlock under his clothing, and Greg fought hard against the urge to compare his thin frame to those of Emmy and Jack.

“.. completely ineffectual. You send in a convicted drug addict to do your job, and then a committee to intervene when even that's too much for you to handle, though at least you show up to the murder cases.” Sherlock's voice faltered at those last words, and Greg pulled back to see the same betrayal in his eyes as when he'd first seen the disciplinary report on Greg's computer.

“Disciplinary hearings are closed proceedings. I wasn't allowed to attend.”

Sherlock shrugged off Greg's hands with a muttered, “convenient,” and Greg grabbed his shoulders before he could turn away.

“No, it was not convenient for me. In fact, I was very worried about you.” 

As Sherlock tried to pull away, Greg held him tightly, trying to find a way to communicate his sincerity. He was forming the words when John appeared from their room.

“Did you hit him?” he demanded, rushing to Sherlock's side.

Greg stepped back in reaction to John's outrage. “It was his brother.”

“Jesus.” John examined the outline of what was sure to become an impressive bruise, and Sherlock endured it, tilting his face grudgingly at John's silent commands. “That's going to need some ice.”

“Unnecessary,” Sherlock said, and began to gear up for another rant, most likely one about how emotionally unaffected he was by everything around him.

Greg had heard enough of Sherlock's heart of stone, and put a stop to it before it started. “After John's taken care of your face, we're going into the lounge, and we're going to spend the next hour eating biscuits and watching crap telly. Is that clear?”

Sherlock looked confused by the diversion for a split second, before his practised façade of resignation and sufferance fell into place. “I suppose I don't have a choice.”

It was about as amenable as Sherlock got to anything that didn't involve fresh corpses, and Greg sat back and watched John tend to Sherlock's face. “We should try to get you back on the register now that your leg isn't bothering you any more. They never should have struck you off in the first place. It was a temporary illness.”

John ignored the suggestion in favour of further inspection of Sherlock's injury. Finally, Sherlock spoke for him. “He doesn't want to get back on the register.”

Greg looked over to John, who rubbed his leg absently. “I don't know where they'd put me.”

“Surely as a doctor you'd have options.”

Sherlock snorted his disbelief as John finished up with his cheek. John's silence confirmed Sherlock's cynicism, and Greg dropped the subject.

“Crap telly, then,” Greg said, it took only twenty minutes and six biscuits for Sherlock to distract the three of them with his outrage at the stupidity of British television.

* * *

Luckily for Sherlock, and for Greg as well, the next post didn't appear until the following Wednesday, two days after Sherlock had already been back on the case, sorting through the impossibly long list of names that Donovan had cross referenced between Rhodes and Hammond's respective cases. Pulling out the information on the user image had been as easy as Annie had promised, and he was soon looking at a newspaper article describing a scandal that had ended the career of the previous head of the work release programme. 

“That's our target, then?” Donovan asked him.

“Yeah, looks like,” Greg agreed. “And let's narrow that list of names to people who were sent to work release. Star anyone whose sentence was extended.”

Christopher Lewis hadn't done anything exactly illegal, it seemed, but with offenders whose labour was more valuable to the department almost half again more likely to have their sentences extended in internal disciplinary proceedings, there had been enough questions about lack of oversight to force him out of his position. It had been a blow to the legitimacy of the programme, but with government services increasingly dependant on the cheap labour work release provided, there was incentive to take whatever steps necessary to ensure that the public regained confidence in it quickly. The possibilities of both early and late release had been ended, and the programme had scrambled to put alternate disciplinary measures in place. Lewis, of course, had been replaced.

With the flash mob scheduled for the next afternoon, they had less than twenty-four hours to set up their operation. The crowd would make it easy enough to get officers around Lewis, ensuring he wasn't in any danger. As long as the killer stuck to trying to strangle his victims, he wouldn't be hard to find. They only had to keep their eyes on Lewis, and it would just be a matter of time.

* * *

Lestrade had never seen so many clowns in one place before, not even when he'd taken the kids to the circus. Even without the creep factor, the bright colours were straining his eyes as he scanned the crowd for any suspicious activity. Tourists and locals alike were taking photographs with their phones, the chaos and confusion making it even more difficult for him to see through the crowd. No one else seemed to be having any luck either, and Greg started to wonder whether he should have allowed Sherlock to attend the operation. Sherlock had been furious, of course, that he was being excluded, ranting about the Met's safety protocols for a full half hour before Greg had escorted him to a storage closet, instructing him to come out whenever he was ready to act civilly. Sherlock was right that it wasn't that dangerous of an operation, just insufferably garish. Greg was rubbing the ache from his eyelids when his mobile buzzed with a message from Mycroft Homes. 

The image had been captured from CCTV footage, a still of Sherlock from just three minutes ago, if the timestamp was correct. _You appear to have lost something_ , the caption read.

A few seconds later, Greg's mobile buzzed again. Mycroft had sent him an address.

Greg swore, already running back to the car as he phoned Donovan to alert her of the situation. It was a twelve minute drive, at least with the sirens running. He jumped out of the car and looked up at the building. When nothing seemed out of place, he checked his mobile again then jogged around to side, looking for any sign of Sherlock's presence. A locked gate kept him from entering the alley behind the building, but it didn't keep him from seeing the figure leaping from a second storey window and landing on a closed bin. Greg let out a relieved breath when the man, thankfully much too small to be Sherlock, skidded harmlessly off the bin and began to run down the dark alley. When he looked back up to the window, though, his breath caught again.

Sherlock was framed in the window, poised to jump after the man Greg could only assume had murdered Rhodes and Hammond.

“Sherlock, no!” he shouted.

Sherlock dropped from the window, landing lightly on the bin before sliding down just as the killer had a few seconds previously. “Peterson is dead!”

The name whirred in Greg's head. Peterson had replaced Lewis as head of the work release programme. He'd been mentioned in the article about Lewis's retirement, though only briefly. The killer had allowed the police to focus their efforts on Lewis while he killed Peterson, a senseless choice, as they wouldn't have been watching Peterson regardless of the message board post. Sherlock had somehow made sense of it, though, and he'd run off after a killer without telling anyone what he'd deduced, was continuing to run after him in spite of Greg's direct commands.

“Sherlock, stop!”

Sherlock did stop, just long enough for his eyes to dart from Greg's hands, the gate latch, and any possible other avenue that Greg had to pursue him. With the information he gleaned from that appraisal, he ran.

Greg smacked both palms on the hard metal of the gate between them. “Damn it!”

* * *

Forensics was as happy as one could be at a murder scene. Without the flash mob to unwittingly destroy the evidence, they were certain they could glean something from what they'd found. There was even a chance they'd got DNA from under the victim's fingernails. He'd used a knife this time, though. Apparently without the threat of someone noticing the murder, he was willing to forego strangulation for the convenience.

“He's making mistakes,” Donovan said.

“Yeah,” Greg agreed, raising his eyebrows at her expectantly.

“He's angry. This is personal for him, strangling someone with his bare hands, slashing the throat like that. It's not like bashing someone's skull in, is it?” She stared at the pool of blood next to the body. “Maybe he suffered some sort of assault in the programme? He's cold, though, and willing to wait, got the anger under control. Clever, educated, I'd imagine.”

“Exactly. He knows how to cover his tracks, and he's not doing it.” Greg shook his head. He'd still not heard back from Sherlock, and now knew that the murderer he'd followed into the alley was armed with a knife. Officers were looking for him, but so far there'd been no sign.

Donovan mistook his anxiety for concern about the case. “That's good, yeah? It means we're going to catch him.”

“It means he has nothing left to lose.” Greg pulled out a cigarette. “He's close to his end game, and he's more dangerous than ever.”

Greg left the building and walked until he found a deserted area where he could indulge in a rare cigarette without the stares of those who knew he was trying to quit. He took a soothing drag, then whirled around when he heard someone behind him.

Sherlock stood in the shadows, face pink with exertion and shaking with excitement.

“I know who-” He didn't get to finish the thought. Greg dropped the cigarette and pulled him into a hug so tight that the breath was certainly squeezed out of him. Sherlock stood silently, and Greg could almost sense him rummaging around in his mind palace for some context for the situation. “I thought you'd be angry.”

“I'm furious,” Greg confirmed, holding on to Sherlock for a few seconds more, revelling in the tangible certainty of his safety. When he pulled back, Sherlock's face was scrunched up in curiosity. “Come on. We're going home.”

Sherlock shook his head as he followed Greg back to the police car. “No, I have to go back to NSY. I'm so close-”

“If you go back right now, they're going to throw you straight into a police cell, and then into prison.” He opened the passenger door and ushered Sherlock toward it, but Sherlock stubbornly stood and faced him.

“There's a killer on the loose, and I can stop him,” Sherlock argued, as if Greg were the imbecile when Sherlock had just jumped from a second story window and tried to chase down an armed murderer. Greg's relief at finding Sherlock safe was quickly being eclipsed by frustration at the obstinacy, disobedience, and lack of concern for his own safety that Sherlock was determined to display at every opportunity.

“I don't care. Get in the car. Now.” Officers were coming out of the building, and Greg's impatience grew. Sherlock had already been reported missing, and if any other officers were to get entangled in the situation, Sherlock would be back in prison before Greg could figure out what to do. Mycroft Holmes not withstanding, it would be a lot harder to get him out of prison than to keep him out.

Sherlock sucked in breath, preparing for another argument, then gasped instead as Greg spun him around and laid a loud slap at the back of his thigh. Shrugging out of Greg's grip, Sherlock eyed him warily, and when Greg didn't display any remorse, folded himself carefully into the passenger seat of the car.

Greg closed the door, then took his own place in the driver's seat, starting toward home before breaking the silence.

“I didn't want to smack you, but we had to leave before the other officers got there.”

Sherlock ignored the implication that he'd care about something as mundane as a slap to the thigh. “I'm more use to everyone working on the case.”

“Sherlock, you are here to be rehabilitated, not solve crimes. If these cases are getting in the way of your rehabilitation, you will no longer be working with the Met. Is that clear?” Sherlock let out a derisive puff of air in lieu of an answer, and Greg was in no mood to let it go. “I asked you a question.”

“Yes, a stupid one, as you essentially asked me whether or not I still understand the English language. Surely, with even your meagre intelligence, you can puzzle that one out for yourself.”

Greg pulled the car to the side of the road so that he could face Sherlock squarely. “You are in my custody. I'm responsible for your safety, and I just spent the past several hours wondering whether you were stabbed to death because you chased an armed serial killer into an alley, so this is not the best time to get smart with me.”

Unimpressed with Greg's warning, Sherlock continued. “Maybe if you'd let me work the case without all these ridiculous restrictions, he'd already be caught and wouldn't be out there killing people.”

“And maybe I'd rather him kill a hundred strangers than kill you!”

Sherlock opened his mouth, then closed it, brow furrowed, as he stared into the busy street. “That's idiotic.”

Greg nodded and pulled the car back into traffic. He had the strange suspicion that he'd just won an argument with Sherlock Holmes.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The pentultimate chapter. Thanks again to embalmer56, beta extraordinaire.

Sherlock was in his room, quiet, though that often just indicated the calm before the storm. Annie and the kids were sleeping, and Greg sat with John at the kitchen table, trying to find a solution that he could implement before morning, when Sherlock was scheduled to be questioned. Ostensibly, he was to give his eyewitness account of seeing the killer, but the Met already knew that he'd only caught a glimpse of the back of the man's head as he jumped out the window. CCTV cameras had caught more, but not enough to identify him, and Greg suspected that the interview would end in a disciplinary hearing, and Sherlock's subsequent removal from the programme. In some ways, he thought that might be for the best.

“He's going to get himself killed if he keeps on like this,” he sighed, taking the last gulp of the beer that John had pulled out of the fridge for him. John's own beer sat untouched on the table, but Greg appreciated the camaraderie that the bottle implied.

“Yeah, I saw a bit of that in the army.” 

“What happened to them?” Sherlock on his own was completely unmanageable. He couldn't imagine handling an entire group of young men who acted as if they were immortal, with all the rights and privileges encompassed therein.

“The army doesn't have a lot of qualms about physical punishment.” Greg's alarm must have shown on his face, because John's lips quirked up in a smile. “These weren't brutal beatings. It was just discipline.”

“I hit him,” Greg blurted out before he could stop himself. John's brows rose in surprise, and Greg hastened to explain. “I smacked him. We needed to leave before he got himself tossed into a cell. He wouldn't get into the car, and I smacked his leg.”

“Did he get into the car?”

“Yeah.” Somehow that seemed to make it worse. “I'm an arse.”

“It sounds like you gave him what he needed to stay out of prison.” John cocked his head at Greg's uneasy groan. “You don't have a problem with disciplining your children, Greg.”

“I don't hit them!”

“No, but I've seen Jack cry at getting sent to the naughty chair.” Truth be told, Greg also felt like an arse when that happened, too, and he let his son out earlier than the prescribed five minutes more often than not. “Sherlock's an odd one, but do you think he'd rather get his leg smacked, or spend the night in a police cell?”

Greg remembered Sherlock's resentment of his time in front of the disciplinary committee. He'd not been angry about getting punished; he'd been angry that Greg had left him to strangers. Mycroft Holmes was an infuriating posh git, but he'd been right when he'd said that Sherlock didn't accept discipline from many people.

Greg rubbed his hands over his face, and John slid his own beer to Greg's side of the table.

“You can talk to him about it, you know, give him a choice of whether to go in front of a committee or take care of it here.”

“Is that what you'd do?”

“I'd strap him,” John said, unconcerned with Greg's judgement. “Like you said, he's going to get himself killed if he keeps on like this.”

“And you think the strap is going to change him?”

John shrugged. “At least it'll tell him it matters to you whether he lives or dies.”

It made sense. Greg steeled himself for it, then realized that he didn't have a bloody clue what he was doing. “I don't have a strap.”

John turned away and laughed, “You don't have a...” He stood and unbuckled his belt, then slid it out of its loops and folded it over before handing it to Greg. “Hold it by the buckle, keep it doubled over, and swing hard enough that it doesn't twist.”

Greg stared at the belt in his hand with an apprehension that would be more appropriate for a poisonous snake.

“You're making this into a much bigger deal than it needs to be.” John took the belt back. “Here, bend over the table.” 

“I... What?”

“Just bend over the table.”

Bending over the table, Greg had a half second warning before John brought the belt down squarely on the centre of his arse. His mouth opened in a silent gasp of pain, and he stood quickly

“There. Just a few of those, and you're done,” John told him, handing him back the belt. “Not a big deal. You give Emmy her jabs sometimes, and it's not too different from that.”

Greg's arse stung, but John was right. It wasn't that painful, and definitely not to the level of brutality that he had feared. John had managed to hit him just hard enough that it felt unpleasant without crossing the line into cruelty.

“I think you should do it,” Greg said. “I'm going to talk to Sherlock, but I think you should do it.”

At John's reluctant nod, Greg took a breath and walked into Sherlock's room. Sherlock was sitting on the sofa bed, stiff and formal, with his palms pressed together in front of his chin. His fingers tapped a steady rhythm against each other in an outward reflection of the churn of his thoughts. He glanced up at Greg's arrival, assessing him silently.

“There's not going to be a disciplinary hearing,” Greg told him. “You're going to be punished here, and I'll make the report afterwards. You're also completely off the case, and after your questioning tomorrow, you won't be going in to NSY for at least two weeks.”

Sherlock's fingers stilled. “You've asked John to beat me.”

“We've discussed it, but I'm willing to hear what you have to say.”

“It's fine.”

Greg searched Sherlock's face, unsure what he was looking for, but Sherlock gave nothing away, sitting subdued and expressionless as he waited for Greg's next step.

“All right.” He walked back to the kitchen and gave John a curt nod. John took the belt from the table and disappeared into Sherlock's room while Greg sat waiting with his face resting in his hands. 

After a few minutes, John came back, belt back in its place at his waist.  When Greg looked up expectantly, John shook his head at him and continued on to the counter, where he rummaged through of the drawers and pulled out a heavy wooden spoon.  He left without a word, and the silence hung heavily until it was broken by several loud cracks from Sherlock's room.  A few moments later, John emerged with the spoon and a short nod at Greg.  He set the spoon down on the table between them.

“He asked me not to use the belt.”

Greg wondered whether Sherlock had a reason, or just wanted to retain some control over the situation.  He'd been uncommonly compliant since they'd arrived at the flat.  “But he didn't argue with you?  He wasn't angry?” 

Shaking his head, John sat back down. “He said I was just doing what I was forced to do, and he may as well blame the belt. I told him I make my own choices, as does he.” He fiddled absently with the beer bottle in front of him. “You can go in there. He's supposed to apologise to you.”

Greg walked to the doorway and leaned against frame, waiting for Sherlock to acknowledge his presence. Sherlock lay on the sofa bed staring up at the ceiling. “Sherlock? Are you all right?”

“You should know. You let him hit you, too.” He finally graced Greg with a sideways stare. “Oh, don't act surprised, of course I heard it.”

Shifting uncomfortably, Greg turned back to the subject at hand. “I wanted to check on you.”

“The body's just transport, Lestrade. It doesn't matter.”

“But it mattered that it wasn't the belt?” Greg prompted, and Sherlock ignored the question, stone-faced at the exposure of a chink in his emotional armour. Greg ran a hand through his hair and tried again. “I just want to make sure you're okay. All of this is about making sure you're okay.”

“I understand your motivations, Lestrade.” Greg waited for Sherlock to elaborate, encouraged by the lack of derision that marked so many of Sherlock's social interactions. Sherlock's brow furrowed. “I appreciate that they are different to those of others in my life, as are John's.”

A sharp insight into why Sherlock had not wanted John to use the belt struck deep into Greg's gut. “You know I worry about you, Sherlock, about what might happen to you if you keep on like this.”

“It was for the case.”

“You're more important than the cases.”

“I know you believe that,” Greg tried to interject that he believed it because it was true, but Sherlock anticipated the interruption and held a hand up to quiet him, then brought his finger back to his lips in a pensive gesture. “And I know your concern for me extends beyond your professional obligations.”

“Well, good. That's good, yeah? That's progress.”

“I am the man that I am, Lestrade. I'm not going to change because of all this.”

“You don't have to change who you are. You just have to stop jumping out of windows and chasing after murderers, things that are likely to kill you. A little courtesy wouldn't go amiss now and then.” Greg walked over and crouched down beside him, squeezing Sherlock's hand gently. “As much as you try to hide it, you have a good heart. You're just completely intractable.”

“I'm sorry,” Sherlock drew the words out slowly, as if he were trying out a foreign language for the first time.

“I don't need you to apologize. I need you to be safe.”

“Good, because I'm not actually sorry.”

Greg had expected as much. He doubted he'd ever see Sherlock display genuine remorse, but for the moment he was safe, and Greg was going to do his damnedest to keep him that way.

* * *

The suspension was going better than Greg had anticipated. If Sherlock had ever resented John for carrying out the punishment, he certainly didn't hold a grudge, and the two seemed close, laughing in their room and sharing the occasional secret smile at some private joke over dinner.

Whatever grace Sherlock had extended to John stopped short of Greg, however. Sherlock had barely spoken to him since he'd been punished, retreating into his mind when Greg got close. It was a welcome reprieve for Greg, who'd expected to deal with constant complaints. After a week, however, Greg was resolved to sort things out with his errant charge.

With that in mind, Greg knocked on the door to Sherlock's room. After a few moments of silence, Greg cracked open the door. Sherlock was lying on the sofa bed next to a stack of newspapers, still in his pyjamas and dressing gown. He held Annie's tablet in his hands, which he'd been using to scour local news websites ever since she'd loaned it to him.

“Sherlock?”

Sherlock ignored him, and Greg let himself inside, sitting on the edge on the bed next to Sherlock's hip.

“It's just another week, Sherlock.”

“Hmm?” Sherlock didn't look up from the tablet, even as he frowned at Greg's intrusion. “Oh, yes, the suspension.”

Greg took the tablet from Sherlock's hands and set it down on the coffee table. “I think I might be able to take you back to NSY on Monday, but I can't put you back on that case.”

Without the tablet to distract him, Sherlock stared at the ceiling. “I've solved the case.”

“What?” Greg stated down at Sherlock's indifferent face. “What do you mean you solved the case?”

Sherlock didn't answer, but he pulled a photograph from the pocket of his dressing gown and handed it to Greg. It showed a woman in her early twenties, smiling carelessly at something on the other side of the camera. She looked vaguely familiar, but Greg couldn't place her.

“Is this evidence? Did you withhold evidence?”

Sherlock took the photograph back with a sigh. “Katherine Guy. You don't remember her, but then again, why would you? Just another drug addict killed in a stairwell.”

“Wait, this is the girl from when Callahan beat you.” He hadn't recognized her without the heavy make-up and the dyed hair. “She looks so...”

“Not like a strung out prostitute, yes.”

“Sherlock, I know you're upset about what Callahan did to you, but you can't withhold evidence.”

Sherlock jerked upright. “I'm not upset about Callahan! Can't you see?” He grabbed Greg's shoulders in frustration. “Why did he beat me that day? Why was he even there?”

“I don't know, Sherlock, but he's gone now. He's been transferred.”

Sherlock shook his head. “He's dead.”

“What?”

“He was killed by the same person who killed Rhodes, Hammond, and Peterson. His murder was in the papers this morning.”

“And now you think they deserve to die?”

“More than Katherine Guy did, yes.” Sherlock set the young woman's picture between them. “Katherine Guy was twenty-two when she got caught up in a minor drug charge, and she should have gotten probation. Someone needed her, though. They snatched her up for the Work Release Programme, and now she's dead. The killer was holding this photograph in Peterson's face when I found him.”

“Sherlock, I know that this programme has been hard for you, but you cannot withhold evidence or information just because you sympathise with the killer's motives.”

“The programme hasn't been hard for me.” At Greg's look of disbelief, Sherlock elaborated. “I need the work, the stimulation the game provides.”

“It's more than a game, Sherlock. You're doing good here.”

Sherlock picked up the tablet and swiped over to a web page he'd already opened. It was the employee profile for David Guy, a software developer for a local start up. “How 'good' is it to prevent Katherine's brother from finding justice for her?” 

“Revenge isn't justice. We have a legal system for that.”

“It's easy to be that naïve when the system favours you, Lestrade.” He toyed with the tablet in his hands. “It favours me as well. I'm not blind to the benefits that the programme has had for me, but my experience has been singular. The system preys on the weak and vulnerable. Katherine Guy's brother does not hold the British government in the palm of his hand, and now she's dead. Callahan didn't beat me because of my 'attitude', Lestrade. He beat me to get me off the case.”

“Sherlock, please tell me that you did not know about Callahan's murder before it happened.” Sherlock shook his head, and Greg let out a breath of relief. “Is there anything else I need to know before I get an arrest warrant for Guy?”

“It doesn't matter. He wants to get caught tonight. Christopher Lewis is the last murder.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year!
> 
> And of course thanks to Embalmer56 for her support and beta.

Greg drove them in silence, keeping a firm eye on Sherlock, who was still too much of a loose cannon to leave without supervision. Others would arrive first, they knew, and hopefully in time to stop Guy before he killed Lewis, but Greg still didn't entirely trust that Sherlock had told him everything, or that he'd be as open if and when new information surfaced.

“You're doing the right thing, Sherlock.”

“Subjective.”

“Guy will get to tell his story, and with what you found, Lewis will be going to prison.”

Sherlock glared out into the London night. “The world is what it is, Lestrade. I don't delude myself into thinking I can change it. The people who have the power to change the system, people like my brother, will never do so, because they have the most to lose by its abolishment.”

“You _are_ making a difference. You're bringing people to justice. Think of how many people have been saved by your work in this programme.”

“Maybe I'm being rehabilitated, but what about Katherine Guy? What about John?” Sherlock turned a recriminating glare on Greg. “You have a _slave_ living in your house Lestrade.”

“He's not-”

“Oh, spare me your justifications. He's a human being who's legally bound to work there.”

Greg suddenly realized that Sherlock wasn't just trying to provoke him, that John's situation was actually breaking whatever esoteric moral code Sherlock had. “I can't release him from the programme, Sherlock. Even if I tried, he'd just go back to the Labour Centre.”

“Exactly. So stop pretending that either of us can make a real difference.”

Flashing lights signalled their proximity to Lewis's residence. Greg parked in the middle of the cluster of police cars and grabbed Sherlock before he could even take off his seat belt.

“Stay here.”

“I'm going inside.”

“Absolutely not. There's an armed killer in there.”

“I'm the only one who knows what he's thinking.”

Greg didn't have time to argue his point. “Stay in the car,” he ordered, and left Sherlock behind.

As he approached the scene, he was glad he'd not allowed Sherlock to come. Guy was holding Lewis in front of him like a shield, a knife pressed to the man's throat. Several guns were trained on them. Greg knew he had to tread carefully, not just for Lewis, but for Sherlock, who could possibly be charged as a co-conspirator if it came out that he'd known about the murder beforehand and had hidden evidence.

Greg stepped forward, holding up his empty hands. “I'm just here to talk, Mr. Guy. I'm Detective Inspector Lestrade.”

“Yeah, now that rich people are dying, you've gotten a little more interested, haven't you?”

“I know about Katherine.” Greg pulled the photograph from his pocket and showed it to him.

Guy's grip on Lewis tightened. “You don't know anything about her.”

“You're right.” Sherlock's voice came from just behind Greg, who resisted the temptation to shout at him to return to the car. “The police are incompetent. They don't know anything, but I'm not the police.” 

“I know who you are, Sherlock Holmes. You've learnt your place, haven't you? The Met's obedient little servant. Did they beat it into you, then?” Sherlock flinched, so slightly that Greg doubted anyone else noticed. “I don't blame you. I may as well blame one of the guns pointed at me.”

Sherlock's brow furrowed at the reflection of his own words, “I'm making a choice, and so can you. You don't need to do this. You wanted the publicity that a trial would bring, and you'll get that. You can still tell your sister's story, but only if you're alive.” 

“You don't know-"

“It wasn't random, what happened to her. They chose her, and they knew she would die.”

“What?”

“They cut her hair, dyed it, didn't they? But you didn't see the excessive make up she was wearing when she died. They made her look like someone else, someone who was a target. They even put her in someone else's shoes, shoes that didn't quite fit her, but necessary to the façade. I imagine the intended target wore them regularly, and wanted them back after the entire charade was over.”

“What does it matter? She's still dead. It doesn't change anything.”

“Doesn't it? Abuse of power, criminalization of poverty, taking advantage of the vulnerable, that's just life. What happened to your sister is a scandal. Imagine what the news media will make of it.”

Guy twitched, processing the new information.

“You can make them pay, but you need to put down the knife.”

The knife fell to the ground.

* * *

Greg sat in the car with Sherlock, reeling from the new information. Katherine Guy had had the misfortune of a strong resemblance to Chloe Allen, an undercover officer whose cover had been blown. Callahan had managed to get her into the work release programme where he'd used her as an unwitting double to take the blade meant for Allen. What amazed Greg the most, however, was Sherlock's apparent new faith in the justice system.

“What you said in there...”

“I said what he needed to hear to drop the knife.” Sherlock replied, challenging Greg to believe anything different.

“It was good work, Sherlock. You saved a man's life, and Guy will have his chance to tell his sister's story.”

Sherlock stared as the police car holding Guy drove off into the distance. “Will you ask John to beat me again, for running inside against your instructions?”

“If I did, would it be worth it, to stop a murder?”

“It would be worth it to win.”

Greg shook his head and started the car.

* * *

When they arrived back home, they were greeted by the unfortunate sight of Mycroft Homes sitting at the table. John sat across from him, stunned by whatever paperwork lay between them.

Sherlock rounded on his brother. “What are you doing here?”

“Hello, Sherlock. Detective Inspector Lestrade.” Mycroft gave them both a wan smile as he pointedly turned back to his paperwork without answering his brother's question.

John snapped out of his reverie. “I got psych clearance. I'm back on the register.”

“That's brilliant!” Greg clapped him on the back, even as Sherlock's frown deepened.

“That doesn't answer my question. Why are you here, Mycroft?”

“I've arranged alternative housing for you. Your clothes and other belongings have already been packed. We'll be leaving shortly.”

Sherlock stepped forward in outrage. “You can't just move me around like a chess piece!”

“Sherlock, I have found you a flat, with a proper bed in a room of your own. A little gratitude would be appropriate, both for me and for the lovely landlady who promised to take you on as long as there's someone around to look after you.”

“That would be me, by the way,” John added. “In lieu of paying off my debt. Apparently, wrangling you is enough of a service to the country.”

“Indeed,” Mycroft muttered.

Sherlock scanned the three of them, observing and deducing until he came to a decision and levelling an accusatory glare at Greg. “You knew about this.”

“It's like you said, I can't change the world. But I can help the people I can.”

Unsatisfied, Sherlock looked over at Mycroft, who was trying for all the world to look as if he didn't give a damn about helping anyone.

“You'll still be consulting with the Met, of course.” Mycroft began to sort his papers into several folders. “Dr. Watson is free to join you on those consultations.”

“John!” Emmy appeared in her bedroom doorway and ran into John's arms. Jack, not to be outdone, appeared a few seconds later to fling himself at Sherlock. Emmy sniffled into John's shirt. “Mummy said you and Sherlock are moving to your own flat.”

“Yeah, but you can visit any time you want.”

“Where?” she asked.

John reached around her to read the file Mycroft had given him. “You can find us at 221B Baker Street.”


End file.
